Karina Bucci December 20 th,

2023
2241272

The Enlightenment and its Effects

Throughout history, art has come in many different shapes and forms. The changing of

the type of art has to do with the society and culture surrounding it. The Enlightenment era came

right before Romanticism and had lasting effects on art, culture, and society. With enlightenment

focusing on reason and logic, Romanticism shifts its attention to emotion rather than reason. Not

only does the effects of the Enlightenment create change within the public but also their views

towards their way of life.

The Enlightenment era heavily fixated on science and rationality, once separated from the

church people started exploring the world of science. Leaving behind emotion and imagination.

Romanticism criticizes this way of thinking; they believe that life should be filled with emotion

and creativity. That humans shouldn’t be molded, that each person should have free will with

their spirituality. Romanticism also saw nature as inspiration, a lot of inspiration towards art

derived from nature, they celebrated nature as beautiful and spiritual. They believed that nature

was a powerful source that can evoke emotions and connect people with their higher selves.

Surprisingly romantics were more open to religions instead of science. A quote that describes

perfectly their relationship with nature is “in nature and the language of the sense/the anchor of

my purest thoughts, the nurse,/the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul/of all my moral

being” taken from Tintern Abbey written by William Wordsworth. They believed that

industrialization destroyed human nature, while the enlightenment viewed it as progress.

 Their change on art is also a huge part of Romanticism, where the division of art and

science come into play. Thanks to this, we don’t corelate art with science and math. All types of

art were seen as an expression of the painter. Romantic artist immersed themselves in

imagination and creativity instead of realism, they aimed to evoke emotions and emphasized the

expression of feelings and individual experiences. Romantic heroes were often portrayed as

rebels or outsiders challenging the social norms of what heroes look like. Once again, nature

played a big part in art, with artists like Joseph Turner painting scenic landscapes showcasing

mystery and dread. In a nutshell the enlightenment was all about order and reason in regard to art

and to completely shift that view romanticism enjoys focusing on spontaneity and individual

expression.

The lasting effects that romanticism has on our society is the fact that we no longer

associate math/science with art. We don’t corelate the two things, in fact to us in the 21 st century

they are two completely different subjects. We view art as an expression of emotion that should

evoke something within us. More importantly some effects that it had on the 19h century was

influencing new philosophical thoughts such as irrationality. Nationalism was also a big thing

that effected the 19th century, it created a sense of community and inspiration for art and music,

many artists turned to their culture to influence their work relying on their culture, heritage,

folklore and history. This new look on art and the division of art was something new and drastic

for the people of this era.

 The Enlightenment era brought many ideologies into light. It was a drastic change,

bringing new perspectives in all subjects and areas of life but with all these new ideas came

criticism which introduced yet another phenomena that will take everything that we learnt from

the enlightenment era and make us throw it into the trash. With every new idea comes new

criticism and with new criticism comes even more ideas. The emergence of Romanticism can be

seen as a complex response to the Enlightenment era. Both so different yet so effective on

society and our lives today.